Road treatment.



UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

HENRY HICKS HURT, OF NEW YORK, N. Y., ASSIGNOIB, TO BOIBESON PROCESS COMPANY, OF NEW YORK, N. Y., A CORPORATION OF NEW JERSEY.

ROAD TREATMENT.

.10 Drawing.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, HENRY HICKS HURT, a citizen of the United States, residing at New York, in the county of New York and State of New York, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Road Treatment, of which the following is a specification.

. This invention relates to road treatment; and it comprises a method of waterproofing and bonding roadways wherein such road-- ways receive an application of wax tailings,

petroleums may be divided into two general classes; those which on distillation in this manner leave a residue which contains more or less asphalt and those which leave a residue containing more or less paraflin. The former are called asphalt base oils and the latter parafi'ln base oils. The Texas oils may be taken as illustrative of the asphalt base oils while the Pennsylvania type of oils have a paraflin base. Oiling roads with petroleum residuum originated in California where the oils are of asphaltic nature and it was so successful that the process spread throughout the country. It'was soon-discovered however, and it is the general impresion in the art today, that the paraflin base residual oils were not operative for this purpose; that only oils having an aspha t base were suitable. For this reason treatment of roads with residual 011s 1n practice is confined wholly to the use of asphalt base residues; the usual idea being that with these asphalt base residues on exposure to air and sun asphaltization goes further and the ultimate result is. so to speak, an asphalt pavement; a surface of sand particles bonded by asphalt in' the same way that in the ordinary asphalt pavement the sand and gravel are bonded by Trinidad or other asphalt. No action llke this takes place with paraflin base residuals; and, as

Specification of Letters Patent.

roducts have Patented Nov. 6, 191 7.

Application filed January 9, 1917. Serial No. 141,421.

stated, parafiin baseresiduals, though thoroughly tried, are today not used; at least to any great extent. The complaint was that they made the road greasy and did not bond the particles; and the surface was too soft'to remain waterproof under the wear of vehicles. Road oil specifications issued by some of the States forbid the use of residual oils containing any substantial amount of parafiin. Sometimes the presence of a maximum of 5 per cent. is allowed; sometimes the maximum allowable amount is only 2 per cent.

I have found that contrary to all expectations a very satisfactory hard-surfaced road may be made by taking a special distillate of the paraflin base oils; the materialwhich is known in the art as wax tailings. This is a distillate and not a residuum. In the ordinary operation of distillin paraffin base oils, such as Pennsylvania oihs, some of the Caddo oils, etc., the oil is first distilled until the lighter fractions are sent over and then direct steam is turned into the still and distillation continued. Sometimes, the oil is distilled in a plurality of'successive stills,

first without and then with steam. Under the influence of the steam various heavier distillates of the nature of gas oil, spindle oils, cylinder oils. etc. pass over and the material in the still finally becomes a residue of coke. Just before the coking period the distillate which comes over is what is known as wax tailings; it is a heavy oily material which on cooling separates crystals of paraffin. This distillate which is the last distillate coming over where a single still is used, or the distillate from the last still in series where several are used, is the material I use in the present invention.

I findthat by taking the wax tailings and applying it hot to a road of sand or any other granular material it'sinks into the surface and as it cools bonds and Waterproofs the road surface, and in addition gives a hard but somewhat yielding surface particularly adapted for automobile traflic. In character it is unlike the asphaltized road surfaces made with asphaltic residual oils I may of course use a vehicle with the wax tailings instead of using it alone in a highly heated condition. For example, I may add 10 to 35 per cent. of a more or less volatile a lower degree of heat. In use, the oil evaporates from the road surface and leaves the wax tailings'behind as the bonding agent.

The remarkable hardening action of wax tailings on granular materials may be exemplified by the results of certain experimental'work. For convenience in testing tensile strength, the materials were shaped in briquet form. Wet-ground limestone made as fine as possible, was used as the mineral.

matter. Briquets were molded from a dough of this limestone with water and then dried. One lot of the dried briquets was impregnated with wax tailings and one lot was not. immersed in water for 90 minutes and then broke with nine blows from an impact machine while an impregnated sample treated in the same manner resisted 2082 blows. Still another sample was intact after 5000 blows. As regards tensile strength, the unimpregnated briquet gave only 1.5 pounds per square' inch while an impregnated briquet had a tensile strength of from 85 to 260 pounds. Before immersion in water dried but unimpregnated limestone briquets withstood only 12 blows and had but 23 pounds tensile strength.

These numerical results are exemplicatory of the results obtained with sand and other roads treated with the wax tailings. The road when well treated withstands a continuous automobile traflic without breaking up, raveling, disintegrating, etc. And it is waterproofed. J

In the usual practice of this invention I treat the road with about 10 to 13 pounds of wax tailings per square yard. This amount may be used direct, being heated sulficiently to render it thinly liquid and then applied to the roadway by any suitable apparatus. Or the same amount may be thinned down with an oil and then applied. The oil is merely a vehicle and soon evaporates or dries,leaving the surface particles bonded by the wax tailings.

An unimpregnated sample was The road may be of sand, gravel,- earth, macadam or any other suitable material. Any fine or granular material may be bonded by wax tailings to give a smooth, elastic, hard, permanent waterproof roadway. The

wax tailings contain nothing volatile at ordinary temperatures being a distillate made at a high heat. Nor is there anything soluble therein. Unlike asphalt, the material of the Wax-tailings is not much afi'ected by air; and the binder does not harden with while it is itself-a bonding agent when used in combination with other bonding agents, a bond is secured which is more than the sum of the two bonding actions.

While Ihave described this invention as particularly adapted for treating roads, it

may also be used for .general bonding purposes, as in making briquets, cores, etc.

What I clalm 1s:

' 1. The process of surfacing roads whichcomprises imspregnating the same with wax tailings.

2. The process of surfacing roads which comprises impregnating the same with a c(i)lmposition of wax tailings and a thinning o 3. As a new article a roadway having a surface layer of granular material bonded and impregnated by wax tailings.

In testimonywhereof, I affix my signa ture.

HENRY HICKS HURT. 

